Paranormal Historical Romance
Date Published: 01.03.2023
Publisher: Inkspell Publishing
Seeing ghosts is literally in her blood.
Life is hard enough without having to deal with ghosts following you around
every day. Maggie O’Connor wishes that she did not have psychic gifts
but coming from a long line of Irish female seers, she never had a
choice.
Faced with having to care for her departed sister’s orphaned baby,
Maggie struggles to pay the rent while working for pennies at a local Bowery
sweatshop. Her life goes from bad to worse when a wicked neighbor steals the
baby.
Things look up when the handsome son of Maggie’s employer falls for
her. Gershom understands that having psychic gifts does not necessarily make
a woman crazy. If only the local judge agreed. When Maggie ends up at the
New York City Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island, she must find a
way to escape and return to Gershom’s loving arms.
Will Maggie be stuck in a madhouse forever? Even if she escapes, can she
and Gershom rescue the lost baby? The obstacles seem insurmountable, but
anything is possible with the assistance of ghostly helpers and Andrew
Carnegie, one of America’s richest men.
Fairy Tales can come true- but not without suffering.
Love the Gilded Age but want more magic? Grab a copy of THE GHOST IN HER,
the first book in the new Ungilded series featuring magic among the Bowery
Streets. THE GHOST IN HER is a perfect match for fans of Harper Lin’s
Southern Sleuth Series or Christina Skye’s Draycott Abbey series.
“The first book of Anika Savoy’s Ungilded series, The Ghost in
Her is a dark, immersive fairy tale, dusted with Gothic whimsy. It is a
story for the romantic and the history buff, a rich page-turner that forces
us to consider the ongoing social ills that, to this day, continue to haunt
us.”—Bestselling author- Mike Robinson.
EXCERPT
CHAPTER 1
February 1888
The Bowery, NYC
Nessa shuffled ahead of me, her swollen figure enveloped by the moon. Thousands of stars glowed across the vault of an indigo sky. Shards of hope. Although my sister and I journeyed through a desolate back street hours past midnight, we were not alone.
Nessa stopped. “I need to rest,” she said, caressing the precious bump beneath her cloak.
A stack of wooden crates leaned against a factory wall.
Nessa sat on one and stared glumly at her tattered boots. The sole was coming off the left boot, and the laces were so frail that they threatened to break at any moment. I lightly touched her shoulder, trying to offer reassurance that I did not feel.
“We’re almost home,” I said.
Nessa’s face turned upward. The ghostly pallor sent chills through my bones. A thin veil of perspiration covered my sister’s pallid brow, and her cheeks were sunken like deflated balloons.
“I’m scared, Maggie.” The words trembled in her throat, as though coming from a secret frozen place. I clasped Nessa’s hand. She attempted to stand but collapsed back onto the crate. “Give me a few minutes…”
Felicity, the old calico cat that roamed the Bowery, slowly strolled past. She stopped and stared at us with wise emerald eyes. Nessa’s breathing grew labored—the long, desperate grunts giving way to staccato gasps. Looking for a distraction, I crossed the cobblestone path and read an advertisement on a neighboring doorway.
Madame Martha’s Magnificent Corsets.
A Marvel of Comfort and Elegance!
Beneath this proud proclamation was a detailed sketch of a full-bodied woman, cleavage bulging and hips bursting, with a nearly pencil-thin waist. Dressed in a fashionable gown, she admired a ring on her outstretched hand. Long rippling lines stretched from the stone, the artist’s amateur attempt at depicting its dazzling radiance.
“Tell me what it says,” Nessa weakly said.
I snickered and read, “The girdle this lady wears needs no breaking in. It’s as comfortable as a satin under-slip.”
“Impossible,” Nessa dryly remarked.
“Oh, but there’s more,” I continued, my laughter rising as I read the advertisement, word for word. “Merchants take great pains to recommend them. They do not break down over the hips, and the celebrated French curbed ban prevents any wrinkling or stretching at the sides. Those who wear Madame Martha’s Magnificent Corsets are universally adored by men and envied by women, young and old alike.”
Nessa grunted. The corners of her mouth cracked into a broken smile. “Have you ever worn a corset, Maggie? Even the nicest jumps bunch and wrinkle. They flatten your insides into pancakes.”
“Are you wearing one now?” I teased.
Nessa’s mouth lifted, revealing a row of straight white teeth. “If I did, the baby would leap out like a rabbit!”
I glanced up at the red-painted sign hovering close to the factory’s roof. “Gilmores Women’s Apparel. Do you think they would hire me?”
“Don’t get your hopes up.” Nessa gripped the crate and hoisted herself to stand. Though the ground was dry, a dark puddle suddenly formed at her feet. We stared in shock. It meant only one thing. Nessa was in labor.
“Let’s go,” I ordered, tugging at her arm.
Nessa fell to her knees as if walloped from behind. She let loose a piercing cry of pain, prompting the old feline to bolt.
“It’s too late!” she gasped.
Her eyes projected a terror I had never seen before. I soothingly stroked the outline of the unborn infant beneath Nessa’s woolen cloak. It responded to my touch, kicking and pressing down. My heart stirred with compassion. Nessa was not at fault for what happened with the men on that despicable coal ship. None of this was Nessa’s fault.
A kerosene lamp awakened in the factory’s second-floor window. Seconds later, a diaphanous figure emerged from the door advertising Madame Martha’s Magnificent Corsets. The specter approached and kneeled before us. Nessa lay back on the cobblestone, and the phantom midwife calmly got to work.
After much pushing and screaming on Nessa’s part, a loud bundle of life emerged. Slicing at the umbilical cord with a pocketknife, the visitor deftly separated the squirming infant from Nessa and wrapped him in her shawl. She handed the swaddled baby to me, removed the skirt that she wore, rolled it up, and pressed it to Nessa’s loins. The makeshift bandage rapidly turned red.
Desperate to assist, I hastily removed my calico skirt and handed it over. Streaks of Nessa’s blood melded with the tiny black dots of cotton seed remnants. Nessa moaned and closed her eyes.
“Will she be all right?” I anxiously asked.
The specter remained silent. I looked up. High above, the stars glowed, and the moon gleamed, showering us with serenity and warmth.
Nessa’s eyes briefly opened. The lids fluttered as she stared up at me. “Goodbye, Maggie,” she murmured.
“No,” I begged. “Don’t go!”
Nessa released a long, raspy gasp and expired into the night.
The infant stopped crying as if silenced by grief.
I gazed down at Nessa’s lifeless form. Damp strands of golden-blonde hair framed my sister’s heart-shaped face. Her eyes remained open. They stared directly at me. I turned to discover the mysterious visitor had left. I ran to the doorway bearing Madame Martha’s image and pounded for the midwife’s return. No sound was issued from the other side, and no light appeared in the second-floor window.
I paced the cobblestone path, my mind frantically racing like a runaway train: what to do… What to do? I could search for a policeman. Surely, I would quickly find one in the Bowery. What would he think, eyeing a dead young woman lying in a pool of blood? And what would he make of me, holding a naked infant in my arms? I risked being handcuffed, shoved inside a police wagon, and hauled off to the station.
There, the authorities could rip the infant away from me and hand him over to an orphanage.
I had to prevent a second tragedy. I had to abandon poor Nessa and escape with her child.
The day before was unseasonably mild, but now a freezing wind burned my unprotected legs. I lifted my stained calico skirt from the ground and dressed in its warmth. There were a few coins in Nessa’s pocket, the meager wages of begging all day in Madison Square.
I took the coins.
I also removed the boots from Nessa’s limp legs. It felt like a cruel thing, to despoil a corpse, but I knew that Nessa would want me to have them. We often exchanged shoes during our wanderings through the city. My mended slippers, once shell pink, now resembled mud-speckled limpets clinging to my feet. They were still somewhat pretty, at least, I thought they were pretty, but they were useless in the winter months.
In contrast, Nessa’s boots, while ugly and outdated, featured wooden heels that provided a scrap of protection from the city’s winter storms.
I cast Nessa one last sorrowful look. I should probably have taken her woolen cloak, which was much heavier than my cotton one, but doing so seemed especially heartless.
Although Nessa had left her body, I wanted her to stay warm.
Leaning forward, I gently caressed Nessa’s forehead.
“Until we meet again, Nessa,” I whispered through the tears.
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